The present invention relates to dentistry in general, and more particularly to an apparatus for building super-structures on broken or undermined dentition, the apparatus being a dental anchor, a shank for holding the dental anchor, and a hand driver for holding and turning the shank.
Prior art apparatus for anchoring a superstructure to an understructure of a tooth requires drilling a number of channels into the tooth or understructure, where dental anchors are then inserted into the channels and are allowed to protrude above the understructure so that the protruding portions thereof serve as means for anchoring the superstructure. It is noted, that these dental anchors are extremely small, being approximately 0.03" in diameter and approximately 0.2" in length.
Because of the relatively small size of the dental anchors, and because of the limited working areas, a chuck attachment or a coupling tool is used by the dentist to hold the dental anchor when being inserted into the channels. Such chuck attachments or coupling tools are disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 3,434,209; No. 3,675,329 and No. 4,053,982, to which reference may be made.
It is noted, that each of the dental anchors of my above mentioned patents must be threaded into a channel already formed in the tooth. Accordingly, care must be taken to insure that the longitudinal axis of the dental anchor is in alignment with the longitudinal axis of the channel, so that the dental anchor does not form its own hole in the tooth, which may lead to the tooth fracturing. Due to the size of the dental anchor, as mentioned above, this task of alignment is rather difficult, and depends upon the skill of the dentist. Furthermore, the prior art does not disclose a hand driver for the chuck attachment or coupling tool which permits a pivotal relationship therebetween.